Commentaries on current events, political economy, and the Communist movement from a Marxist-Leninist perspective.
Zigedy highly recommends the Marxist-Leninist website, MLToday.com, where many of his longer articles appear.

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Thursday, August 27, 2015

Understanding the
People’s Republic of China (PRC) constitutes a formidable challenge to every
Marxist. Of course it's not a challenge based on some racist notion of
“oriental inscrutability” or even the task of unraveling the obstacles
presented by size, diversity, and complexity. Instead, it is the perplexing
doctrine of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” that confounds many of us.
While no one can contest that the Chinese Communist Party is the leading force
in Chinese society, some see the Party as leading the PRC in the wrong
direction-- along the path of capitalist restoration.

That capitalist
relations of production exist and and have grown in the PRC is unquestionable.
Both domestic private corporations and multinational capitalist enterprises
have gained far more than a toe-hold in the national economy. Nonetheless, it
is pointless to engage in the popular parlor game on the left of declaiming the
PRC as socialist or capitalist. The more pertinent and useful question is:
“Where is the PRC headed?”

I raised that question
in an essay-- The Chinese Puzzle-- in December of
2011. Despite many reservations about the deceptively dubbed “reforms” accepted
by the Chinese leadership, my judgment was that the socialist underpinnings of
the economy, while dangerously weakened, were still intact: the state sector,
relative to national annual product, was still five times greater than a
typical European social democracy like France; the financial sector was
predominantly state owned; and the planning mechanism was weak, but functional.

At the same time, I
was fully cognizant of the many problems wrought by capitalist “reforms”:

The entry
of capitalist features into the PRC economy has plagued it with the maladies
that arise from the anarchy of markets: imbalances, speculative fervor and
bubbles, inflation, labor unrest, grey and black markets, and labor market
chaos. In the spring and summer of 2010, workers rose against low wages and
working conditions in many areas. Again, this year [2011], there were
significant actions for better pay, working conditions and against layoffs. In
the fall, the PRC’s sovereign wealth fund was forced to buy shares in major
Chinese banks. Despite the fact that private investors own a quarter or less of
the country’s biggest banks, a sell-off by foreign investors caused a near
panic met by the sovereign wealth funds’ intervention. Today, inflation, a
construction bubble, and over reliance on exports weigh on the economy. (my
emphasis)

But the PRC's
economic stability during the worse years of the global economic crisis
demonstrated, in my estimation, the existence and value of the remaining
socialist base.

I concluded on a note
of caution:

The
country’s participation in global markets could present problems that even its
remaining socialist tools cannot overcome. Moreover, it is not clear if the PRC
will strengthen these safeguards or jettison them, as its leading Communist
Party shapes this awkward mix of socialism and capitalism.

A Right Turn

Four months later,
alarms sounded with the publication of a joint World Bank and the PRC State
Council's Development Research Center report that urged an acceleration of
privatization, deregulation, financial market liberalization, and openness to
foreign corporate penetration. Of course this prescription is the conventional
wisdom promoted by the World Bank. But most alarming was the endorsement of
this agenda by such a prominent PRC body. The report urges:

In the
financial sector, it would require commercializing the banking system,
gradually allowing interest rates to be set by market forces, deepening the
capital market, and developing the legal and supervisory infrastructure to
ensure financial stability and build the credible foundations for the
internationalization of China’s financial sector.

The study, China
2030, clearly represented the manifesto of the rightist “capitalist
roaders” in the PRC leadership. As I noted at the time (The
Battle for China's Future, 3-06-12), “...the leadership [walks] the
thin, risky line between emerging capitalism and the remaining socialist
institutions. But, clearly, The World Bank and its Chinese allies are
determined to influence that direction. And there should be no doubt which
direction China 2030 is intended to push those leaders.”

With the subsequent
ascendency of the Xi Jinping leadership group, it became clear that further
“reforms”-- economic liberalization-- were forthcoming. Xi sought to unleash
market forces, diminish the power and size of the public sector, and court, in
various ways, foreign capital and corporations. Keen to minimize the rampant
corruption that accompanied the expansion of the private sector, the government
also mounted an aggressive campaign to investigate and prosecute the most
flagrant abusers. They hoped that this would dampen public resentment of
economic inequities that invariably comes with the expansion of private profiteering.

Clearly, PRC's new
generation of leaders have accepted the market dogma that further growth was
threatened by regulation, a prominent public sector, and financial restraint.
Clearly, they have been persuaded by liberal ideologues that more capitalism
and less socialism is the order of the day.

And clearly, they
have not foreseen the dangers lurking on that path.

The decision to go
forward with liberalization was felt dramatically in PRC equity markets. PRC
leaders urged investors to enrich themselves. Beginning in November of 2014,
regulations against leveraging-- margin buying-- were relaxed, interest rates
were cut, and international access to stock markets was expanded, resulting in
the rapid advance of an already hot market. Initial public offerings (IPOs)
multiplied; market capitalization increased five times in one year; margin
loans doubled in six months, reaching 2.27 trillion yuan; individual investors
surpassed 75 million, with even 31% of college students playing the market. The
PRC leaders had unleashed a stock-market frenzy, resulting in Chinese combined
equity markets, at their peak, becoming the largest in the world after the New
York Stock Exchange.

The stock market
“miracle” drove the benchmark Shanghai Composite index to a new high in
mid-June of this year, reaching 5166 from 3334 at the end of last year.

But then the market
collapsed. Less than a month later, $3.5 trillion in nominal value disappeared,
with the market dropping to 3507. By late August it had further eroded to 3210.

Government measures
to stem the crash were ineffectual. Despite suspending IPOs, suspending trading
on many stocks, restraining margin buying, and allocating $19 billion to a
market stabilization fund, the market continued to falter. Twenty-four million
investors left the market, presumably after suffering large losses. To put a
perspective on the losses, they were over 14 times the GDP of Greece.

Unlike in the past,
the PRC had no socialist tools in their tool box (or they chose not to use
them). Unlike in 2008 when the PRC leaders swiftly injected public funds into
public enterprises and public projects to propel the economy away from the
private folly of the global economy, the PRC leaders were overwhelmed by market
forces that they were so eager to unleash.

In their enthusiasm
to embrace markets, the leadership had pledged in February to allow the yuan's
exchange rate against other currencies to float and remove controls on capital
flows. Despite four quarters of capital outflows, the government freed the yuan
exchange rate on August 11, unleashing a devaluation that promises to
accelerate capital outflows. In the face of a collapse of the PRC equity
markets, the leadership chose to answer with further market “reforms.”
Moreover, Western commentators (see Paul Krugman, for example) bizarrely blame
the rout on too few market reforms rather than the aggressive liberalization
that overheated equity markets, an endorsement of a demonstrably failed policy.
Capitalist bromides brought the PRC economy to this juncture. Will the PRC
leaders continue to embrace them?

Global Turbulence

The current chaos in
world-wide equity markets has made the PRC a convenient whipping boy. The
commentariat sees economic problems in the world's second largest economy as
dragging the global economy down. While China's economy is moving in the wrong
direction and, consequently, contributing to the enduring capitalist crisis, it
is far from the efficient or final cause of the painful throes of the
capitalist system. Long developing, deeply embedded processes are working to
undermine the capitalist system (see my The
US Economy: A Midyear Report Card, 6-12-15).

But it is important
to stress, nonetheless, that the Chinese economy-- even with its remaining
socialist features-- is no longer able to rescue the global capitalist economy
as it did, in part, in 2008. As Lingling Wei and Mark Magnier wrote in TheWall Street Journal (China to Flood Economy with Cash, 8-24-15):

Beijing’s
struggles this summer have spooked many investors into viewing China as a
threat to,

rather than a rescuer of, global growth.
During the financial crisis of 2008 and early 2009, China, with a colossal
stimulus plan, acted as a shock absorber. Lately, it is China that is providing
the shocks.

This is a stark and candid admission of the
abandonment to the market of important, critical elements of the socialist
economy by PRC leaders. One can only hope that they will come to their senses
before they join others in trying to manage the unmanageable.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

I
remember the first time that I heard Nina Simone’s voice and piano.
My older sister bought the Bethlehem 45 rpm recording of I
Loves You, Porgy
in 1958. I was fascinated with the B-side recording of Love
Me or Leave Me
because of the intriguing piano bridge resembling a Bach fugue—it
was both strange, yet oddly appropriate. I still have the record over
fifty years later—worn, but still very playable.

I
recall, some years later, anxiously stripping away the cellophane
from a new arrival from the Record Club of America, the latest LP
from Nina Simone. If you wanted to hear interesting music in a small
town in the Midwest in the 1960s, that would be the way to do it. I
fit the disc carefully on the spindle of the console in our living
room and cranked up the volume. The recording, Nina
Simone in Concert
proved to be a milestone in the journey of Nina Simone, the political
commentator and agitator. The last cut begins with Nina Simone
stating emphatically, “The name of this tune is Mississippi
Goddam.
And I mean every word of it....” My aunt, who was working in the
kitchen and seldom listened to, and never commented on, my
unconventional interests in music, drifted into the room and
announced “she MEANS every word of it.”

That
reflected the depth and intensity of Nina Simone's commitment to
social justice. Mississippi
Goddam
rang with indignation, anger and righteousness. It made no
accommodation to the audience’s delicate sensibilities or comfort.
It shouted demands in a way that few artists' works before or since
could match. And most importantly, it came at a time when the Civil
Rights movement needed an anthem reaching beyond liberal pieties and
calls for patience.

But
my own favorite from the album was the brilliant adaptation of the
Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill collaboration, Pirate
Jenny.
Brecht typically imbued the song with a vengeful settling of accounts
between the haughty elites and the common folk. But in Simone's
interpretation, “Pirate Jenny” is transformed into an
uncompromising act of anti-racism as well. Jenny is changed into a
segregation-era Black cleaning woman fantasizing:

You
people can watch while I'm scrubbing these floorsAnd I'm
scrubbin' the floors while you're gawkingMaybe once ya tip me and
it makes ya feel swellIn this crummy Southern townIn this
crummy old hotelBut you'll never guess to who you're talkin'.
No. You couldn't ever guess to who you're talkin'.

Jenny's
fantasy envisions a pirate ship invading the town and destroying all
but the hotel. The survivors puzzle over why the hotel is spared. The
pirates round up the citizenry and, to their surprise, Jenny steps
forth:

And
you see me stepping out in the morning Looking nice with a ribbon
in my hair...And they're chainin' up peopleAnd they're
bringin' em to meAskin' me,"Kill them NOW, or
LATER?"Askin' ME!"Kill them now, or later?"

Noon
by the clockAnd so still by the dockYou can hear a foghorn
miles awayAnd in that quiet of deathI'll say, "Right
now.Right now!"

Then they'll pile up the bodiesAnd
I'll say,"That'll learn ya!"…

Somehow
Simone draws on a well of righteous anger exceeding even the bitter
wrath of Brecht's lyrics. While it is unpopular to speak this way in
an era of hypocritical civility, her version displays a purity of
violence, a chillingly brutal exacting of justice. You can hear it
here.

Surely,
since her death in 2003, Nina Simone is deserving of an homage, a
tribute to her intense musical commitment to social justice.
Unfortunately, the recently released documentary on Netflix What
Happened, Miss Simone?
is not that tribute. Instead, it is a vehicle for placing Simone's
activism in the midst of a troubled life, sandwiched between a
conflicted childhood and a psychological breakdown. Apart from
archival footage, the principle commentators on her life are her
vulgar, materialistic, and artless ex-husband and an estranged
daughter. They too easily dismiss her activism to fault her for their
own unvarnished complaints. In an earlier documentary, Simone's
brother, Sam Waymon, who often performed with her,
uncharacteristically called the ex-husband “a sonofabitch.” Thus,
the new documentary is tainted by post-mortem grievances, an
all-too-common opportunity for settling scores or
self-aggrandizement.

Also,
the film maker, Liz Garbus, shows a shallow grasp of the historical
moment and the political gravity of Simone's profound synthesis of
commitment and music-- in her interpretation, it is simply a product
of Simone's demons. She fails to explore the deep and indelible
influences of her political mentors: Langston Hughes, James Baldwin,
her neighbor, Malcolm X, and most of all the formidable Lorraine
Hansberry. She described their discussions in her autobiography: “It
was always Marx, Lenin and revolution—real girls’ talk.”
Hansberry was the inspiration for To
be Young, Gifted, and Black.

Yes,
Nina Simone was a revolutionary. She described her years as a
movement's musical conductor as the best years of her life. And she
attributed her subsequent expatriation to the death, exile, and
pacification of other leaders of that generation. Much of the
psycho-therapeutic speculation obsessing current commentaries of Ms.
Simone's life misses the point (or evades the point). Simone's
depression and sometimes erratic behavior was an understandable
reaction for a serious, passionate woman experiencing both defeat and
betrayal. Those who have not made commitments and sacrifices will
struggle to understand.

It
is painful to see the trivialization and sensationalizing of Nina
Simone's life that accompanies the current “revival” (A biopic,
and another documentary are coming). As with Paul Robeson, ML King
Jr, and so many others, there is a veritable industry of parasitic
writers devoted-- borrowing from the spiritual popularized by
Robeson-- to “scandalizing her name.” A recent Rolling
Stone
article by Christina Lee (10
Things We Learned From New Nina Simone Doc,
6-29-15) typifies the banalities served up as pertinent to the Simone
revival. Out of the many important elements in Nina Simone's life,
author Lee is drawn to her sexual appetite, her lonely childhood, her
emotional issues, and other irrelevancies, including her once
performing on a Playboy-mansion location television show. Ms. Simone
did not suffer fools.

Nina
Simone was a unique voice, a great artist, an artist who drew
strength from the deepest emotions of love and hate: love for the
people and hatred of bigotry and exploitation. She was a beacon in
her time, a messenger of revolutionary sentiment.

Those
unfamiliar with her work and life might watch the earlier
documentary, Nina Simone, The Legend,
a competent European production from 1992. Also, there are numerous
performances on YouTube, including this mix.
And certainly the Netflix documentary is worth a look despite its
flaws. One can only hope that the forthcoming documentary, The
Amazing Nina Simone,
created with the assistance of Simone's brother, Sam Waymon, will
better represent her enduring legacy.

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Mainstream commentators-- both
liberal and conservative-- would like us to believe that Presidential
contests are like beauty pageants. Primaries allow the two-party
“beauties” to appear before the judges (the voters) to show their
wares. Televised debates are meant to expose the contestants’
political personalities. And, in the fine tradition of
high-school-civics-book democracy, the people are allowed to decide
the winners.

As polished and innocent as this
shallow imagery appears, it hides a far more insidious process.

A far better comparison would be
with the delightful humbuggery of the Wizard of Oz. Like
Dorothy, we are deceived into confusing fantasy with reality. And our
corporate media refuses to pull back the curtain to expose the
deceit.

Republicans

Take the Republican primary, for
example. With 16 (or more) candidates announced as primary
contestants, it looks like the textbook-picture of democracy: a
political flavor for every Republican. Of course the truth is that
most of the candidates have no hope of winning the nomination, but do
hope to gain political advantage, jobs, or future consideration. Many
candidates appeal to the storm troopers of the Republican Party, the
angry bigots, religious zealots, and unhinged war mongers; these
forces serve as a social base for a future fascism. But they present
a painful contradiction for the Republican Party, a party first and
foremost serving the interests of monopoly capital. They can, and
have won regional and local power, but they will not win a national
election. The leaders of the Republican Party know this. They also
know that the vulgar xenophobic right will not necessarily or
consistently carry out the corporate agenda.

That's why the Donald Trump campaign
is such a problem for the Republicans.

A recent lengthy Wall Street
Journal commentary (July 25/26, 2015) featured on the front page
of the week-end Review section addresses this problem. Written
by a prominent senior fellow at the right-wing Hoover Institute,
Peter Berkowitz, the article expresses the tensions in the Party and
calls for reconciliation, while promoting the interests of wealth and
corporate power. Clearly, the Trump phenomenon is of big concern to
Republican king makers. Berkowitz euphemistically distinguishes
between “social conservatives” and “limited-government
conservatives.”

His social conservatives are the
Republican neo-fascists, the Doctor Strangeloves, who would like to
boil minorities in oil, nuke the Iranians, and impose Old Testament
law on the US. Since World War II, they have been both an essential
element of the Republican electoral effort and a hindrance to winning
national office. Republican leadership trumped nuke-happy General
Douglas MacArthur with the saner, business-friendly, and genial
General Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. When Barry Goldwater, a nuclear
terrorist and neo-segregationist, won the 1964 nomination and was
crushed in the general election, the point was driven home: the
wacky-wing of the Republican Party must be mollified, but kept out of
national contests.

While Reagan courted and appeased
the social conservatives, his imprint is most felt with his
restructuring of the relation of labor-to-capital, to the benefit of
capital. To that extent, he was the ultimate limited-government
(read: corporate) Republican. He served capital well, while fostering
a small-town, Midwestern tradition-loving image to appease the
rabid-right. While he may have been the ultimate con man, his ease in
constructing images and his persuasiveness account for the respect
won from supposed political adversaries like Bill Clinton and Barack
Obama.

The Reagan approach-- attack taxes,
unions, public services, benefits, pensions, etc. while coddling the
haters and those rushing toward Armageddon-- served as the template
for Republican national politics until our time. Unfortunately,
Donald Trump-- a figure with B-grade acting chops rivaling Ronald
Reagan's-- threatens to break the template. Trump's independence
imperils Party stability. His open disdain for the rules and
conventions demanded by the Republican leadership upsets the process.
His imperviousness to Party criticism frightens the Party's
watchdogs. His freedom from financial entanglements beyond his own
resources erases possible leverage. But most of all, Trump's threat
to run in the general election terrorizes Party big wigs.

Trump has brought Republican social
conservatism to center stage, presenting a possibly fatal problem to
the Party. While some polls show him with a lead, that lead
constitutes, at best, 16% of the possible Republican primary voters.
Republican leaders know that that will not translate into a majority
in a general election, given an electorate largely hostile to the
Republican Fringe. Berkowitz, fearing a debacle, urges moderation. He
cites rising star Governor Nikki Haley as an example of the kind of
tactical acumen needed in this campaign. Her ready sacrifice of the
symbolic Confederate battle flag at the South Carolina state capital
demonstrated her “maturity,” while safely securing the symbol for
“...'those who wish to show their respect for the flag on their
private property'.” The games our politicians play!

For Berkowitz, the options are
clear. The candidates best representing Republican interests are the
limited-government (corporate) candidates, namely, Jeb Bush, Marco
Rubio, and Scott Walker. At the same time he believes that they must
be good at “blending and balancing the demands of both schools.”

No one should be confused by the
conciliatory tone. Berkowitz and the Republican leadership prefer,
insist upon a candidate dedicated first and foremost to serving
monopoly capital. They will not allow a campaign sacrificed to
nut-case principles. But insofar as Trump may provoke a bloody split
or bolt the Party, they are filled with dread.

Undoubtedly, they will get a
corporate candidate (likely Jeb Bush, who is raising funds at an
unprecedented pace), but at what price?

Democrats

Leftists can only wish that the
Democratic Party had these issues. We can only imagine that Hillary
Clinton wakes up every night in a cold sweat, dreading the next
morning's news about Bernie Sanders. That is not happening.

Unlike the Trump campaign, there is
no danger of the Party's left wing (the so-called “progressives”)
bolting or disrupting the general election. Sanders has assured the
Party establishment that he will not run independently of the
Democratic Party or attack the Party or the primary victor. He
guarantees that he will remain loyal to the Party throughout the
general election-- a loyal soldier. He refuses to attack Clinton,
arguing that he prefers the high road. In other words, he eschews
Trump's independence.

Like Trump, Sanders polls as high as
16% among Democratic primary voters, far below Clinton's numbers. But
unlike Trump, his most loyal followers pose no threat, make no
demands on the Party leaders.

As millions of dollars flow into
Clinton's campaign coffers, she benefits from both the Sanders and
the Trump campaign. The afterglow of the Sanders' populist revival
will deflect critics of her corporate allegiances and rabid foreign
policy. Trump’s rousing of the Republican Taliban will rekindle the
“defeat the ultra-right” crowd who always accept the Party's
tacking to the right to win over the “vital” center. We've seen
this script before.

So we stand in 2015 in the same
position we stood in 2007. The media and commentariat are doing their
best (hundreds of millions of advertising dollars are engaged) to
create the excitement of a contest where the outcome will ultimately
be decided more by fundraisers than by voters. Campaign veterans in
both parties estimate that the winning candidate and (her) opponent
will spend over a billion dollars before the election.

In this context, a polite
“insurgency” within the Democratic Party will not leave a lasting
mark on the political scene. To make a difference, an insurgent would
need to begin years before an election and build a formidable mass
base to counteract the power of money and the entrenched Democratic
leadership. The candidate would need to commit to building a movement
that would encompass state and local organizations while promising to
sustain movement building beyond the current and even future
elections. That has not happened in the past and appears most
unlikely with the Sanders campaign.

For young idealists inspired by
Sanders's departure from political banality, one can only hope that
they will learn valuable lessons about the institutional inertia of
the two parties and shed any illusions about “knights in shining
armor.” Less optimistically, quixotic campaigns like Sanders's, and
Howard Dean's before him, can leave a stain of cynicism and inaction.

Is Bernie-mania a second coming of
Obama-mania, an exercise of fantasy politics on the part of the left?
The test for Sanders supporters who are seasoned veterans of the
political wars will come when Clinton wins the Democratic primaries.
Will they docilely rally behind her and work for another
pro-corporate, war-mongering candidate offering a dubious
lesser-of-two-evils? Or will they seek a principled third party
candidate (like Jill Stein) who offers a long, unsure, and arduous
path, but a path possibly offering real change?